Election Technician Mark Espinoza performs a test run on one of the 19 high-speed ballot counters, in preparation for the upcoming elections, at the San Bernardino County Registrar’s office in San Bernardino on Thursday, September 6, 2018. (Photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Election officials say they’ve added staff members to keep pace with a spike in registered voters, who are expected to show up once polls open across California at 7 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 6.

Some registrars have also increased security, with an eye to heightened political tensions and lingering concern over election tampering after Russians were caught meddling in the 2016 presidential contest.

The Southern California News Group spoke with election officials from Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties about what they’ve done to ensure Tuesday’s voting process is smooth and secure.

Q: Have you beefed up or otherwise changed security at your county elections office or polling places?

A: Orange County’s election office has been working on a major boost to its security playbook for the past 18 months, according to Registrar Neal Kelley. That includes encrypting emails, increasing building security and adding a third-party cybersecurity audit.

“As for polling places,” he said, “this is a harder issue to address because of the very open environment of the U.S. election system.”

Kelley said his team has incorporated heightened awareness training for poll workers and partnered with Homeland Security on the “See Something, Say Something” campaign throughout their training. Also, he said, “We have plans in place for addressing issues quickly in polling places and are in real-time contact with our law enforcement partners throughout the day.”

In Riverside County, Registrar Rebecca Spencer said they added two private security guards at their main office in Riverside because of the increased number of temporary staff going in and out of the office. They also installed safety glass at the front counter. But Spencer said they’d been meaning to add that safety glass for some time, insisting that the decision wasn’t related to any circumstances surrounding this particular election.

“We do have the sheriff’s office here in our office at every election,” said Brenda Duran, spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters. “They are the ones that make sure that, when the ballots come in, there’s a good chain of custody.”

But both Duran and Bob Page, interim registrar of voters for San Bernardino County, said there weren’t any plans for increased police presence or security this Election Day.

Q: Have you added staff or volunteers when compared with previous midterm elections based on predictions of higher voter turnout?

A: Riverside County has added extra temporary staff, Spencer said, since voter registration rolls increased by 150,000 since the last midterm election in 2014.

Orange County and San Bernardino County election officials said they have also boosted their staffing levels.

“The increased number of contests, candidates and ballot styles also was a significant factor in our staffing plans as we brought on more people for each step of the process,” Page said.

In Los Angeles County, Duran said they expect to have around 25,000 poll workers – roughly the same number recruited to help with countywide elections going back at least a decade.

Q: Has your office experienced any attempted cybersecurity attacks leading up to Election Day? Have there been any other threats or indications that you might have disruptions Tuesday?

A: None of the local elections offices reported indications that their systems have been targeted by hackers or suffered any other attempted cyber breaches in recent months.

There haven’t been any reports of physical threats to county election offices or polling places in the four Southern California counties, either. But Kelley said they are working closely with the FBI and Homeland Security, with plans in place to ensure they can bounce back Tuesday if something does occur.

Q: There was a brief hold for audits of voter registrations that came in from the Department of Motor Vehicles, after a glitch in the system led to a small number of minors, felons and non-citizens being inadvertently registered. Has your office caught up with processing those registrations so eligible people can vote Tuesday?

A: Local elections offices said they were caught up on DMV registrations, even though the agency notified them Oct. 30 that a final batch of 7,000 people who’d registered by the state’s Oct. 22 deadline was still coming through.

That included 225 last-minute registrations in San Bernardino County, which registrar spokeswoman Melissa Eickman said would all be processed in time to include those voters on polling place rosters.

Kelley said many of the voters that came in during the last week will likely be on supplemental rosters at polling places or might not be listed at all, depending on when the records came in. But he said those people will still be able to vote provisionally at a polling place Tuesday, and those votes will count as soon as their registration is electronically verified.

Brooke Edwards Staggs covers state and federal politics through an Orange County lens, plus the politics, business and culture of cannabis in California. Journalism has led Staggs to a manhunt in Las Vegas, a zero gravity flight over Queens and a fishing village in Ghana. The Big Bear native is addicted to education. She earned her bachelors degree in English from California Baptist University, then got her master's in education as she taught high school English in the Inland Empire. After four years in the classroom, she left in 2006 to be a student again herself, earning a masters degree in journalism from New York University while interning and freelancing for a variety of publications. She sees journalism as another form of teaching, helping readers make informed decisions and better understand the world around them. Staggs spent five years as a staff writer then city editor at the Daily Press in Victorville. She joined the Orange County Register in January 2013, covering several Orange County communities before taking on the marijuana beat in February 2016 and the politics beat in April 2019. That work has earned her first-place wins in the Best of the West, California Journalism Awards and Orange County Press Club competitions. On occasion, she also teaches community college and ghostwrites nonfiction books. Staggs loves dancing and new adventures. She hates water slides and injustice. If she doesn’t get right back to you, there’s a good chance she’s sitting with her DJ husband on a plane or train or boat destined for somewhere – anywhere – they’ve never been.